Ex-irs Worker Gets 3 Years On Drug Charges

A former federal tax collector who had pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in federal prison and three years of supervised probation.

Kymber Lee Doran, 27, stood before U.S. District Judge Norman Roettger and sobbed as he imposed the sentence, which will include drug rehabilitation and counseling. Roettger gave the Fort Lauderdale woman six weeks of freedom before reporting to prison, but she was required to post a $10,000 personal surety bond.

``I know being in drugs was wrong,`` Doran told the judge before he handed down the sentence. ``I`ve embarrassed my family and myself. I`ve embarrassed my co-workers. I want a chance to start over again.``

But Roettger told Doran that the offense was especially distressing because she was part of the ``federal family`` of employees.

``Nobody created your problems but yourself, and nobody can help you but yourself,`` Roettger said. ``Get back on the straight and narrow.``

Doran was arrested in May after an internal investigation by the IRS revealed that she and two other IRS tax collectors were part of a small-scale cocaine distribution ring. The three were subsequently fired.

She initially pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on a $100,000 personal surety bond co-signed by her father.

But in July, Doran`s bond was revoked by U.S. Magistrate Lurana Snow in Fort Lauderdale. Doran had attended a routine court appointment with her lawyer, although she was not required to make an appearance. When she left the courtroom, Doran also left her address book behind on a bench.

Federal marshals, who thumbed through the book to find its owner, arrested Doran at the courthouse after they discovered that cocaine was stashed in her address book. Doran has been jailed since then while she awaited sentencing.

Doran`s lawyer, Herbert Cohen, argued in Doran`s behalf that she had been an overachiever since high school, but the values of South Florida had corrupted the woman, who was once a high school honor student.

``When someone is an overachiever in our South Florida society, sometimes drugs take a part of it,`` Cohen said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cornell said that no agency was more conscious of its public image than the IRS, and that it was intolerable for the IRS or any federal agency to have employees involved with drugs.

``There are probably a minuscule number of people who work for the government who are into cocaine at any level,`` Cornell said.

Doran`s father, Phil Doran, who testified in her behalf at the sentencing, said that when his daughter went to work for the IRS, he thought she was going to have a long and successful career.

``I didn`t know the problems she was having,`` said Phil Doran, conceding that his daughter needed drug treatment. ``I look at all these football players (with drug problems) ... and they can`t do it on their own. I want her home. I just want her back doing what she should be doing.``